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He just smiled.
“Banana?” he asked the moment Tom was gone.
“Anne. Anna. Anna banana. Banana.” She shrugged.
He sucked in his upper lip and nodded. Jane. In my vein. Pain. Yeah, Banana was better.
Just then, what felt like a wave of people, but was really just six of their relatives, streamed into the living room and swayed Jane with it to admire the tree, which she properly did.
“I got you this,” she said, bending toward seven-year-old Max and handing him a wrapped gift. “Sorry I couldn’t come earlier and put it under your tree.”
Finn watched as Max thanked her.
“Can I open it now?” Max asked Avery. “It’s not under the tree,” he added in a tone that indicated it made opening this one legitimate.
“Go ahead,” Avery said.
For some reason, Finn felt his insides clench, as if the gift was for him, as if he was supposed to find some hidden message or meaning in it for himself. His in-laws and Jane’s parents were busy whispering among themselves, probably still exchanging impressions about Tom, who was still absent.
“Aquaman!” Max called, pulling out the box with the action figure.
“Heard you loved him the most,” Jane said, smiling. Finn could see the tension leaving her body, as if she was happy that her gift had been well received.
“Yeah, water is in his genes,” Avery said.
Pain cut through Finn’s heart, knowing how that would sound to Jane. He looked at her. She seemed absorbed in Max, but a muscle danced in her jaw.
“He already has one,” Avery added. “We got one two months ago, remember?” Avery spoke to Max.
“They’re not the same. They’re different. This one has the Mother Box of Atlantis. I love them both,” Max said, smiling at Jane.
Finn wanted to hug his son for that. Happiness and agony.
“I’m glad, because we’re flying back in two days, and I wouldn’t have had time to replace it,” she told Max with a chuckle.
Choosing a seat at the other end of the same side as Jane and Tom spared him from seeing them throughout dinner. He hardly ate as he listened to them fielding a million questions, some of which were heavily laden with hints regarding grandkids. He sat next to Max to keep himself busy but still managed to learn more about her life in Cincinnati than he had in the years since she had moved there. She seemed content. He was happy.
Happiness and agony.
Using Max as an excuse, Finn went upstairs to put his son in bed. They were staying the night so that Max could open the gifts with his grandparents in the morning.
He stayed in the room long after Max had fallen asleep. There was a shit ton of guilt he had to deal with. Guilt over still loving Jane, over wanting her to be happy but hoping she didn’t forget what they had, though it had been nine years. Guilt over keeping her away from her family, because he knew almost certainly that her rare and short visits were a result of the impossible situation he had put her in. And guilt over his willingness to do it all over again just to re-live that one week when he had loved her to sustain him forever.
When he went downstairs, he heard the TV in the living room, and from the sound of The Property Brothers, he knew that Avery had turned it on. Excited goodbye chatter came from the foyer where his in-laws saw Jane, Tom, and her parents out.
He turned to go back upstairs. He didn’t want to see Jane again, not with everyone else. Not with Tom, who kept calling her Banana throughout dinner, which her parents and his in-laws had thought was cute. By now, his agony was greater than the happiness that the sight of her had brought.
Watching his son sleep and spending the night on a mattress on the floor of the bedroom that his child slept in was his only consolation.
His foot was on the carpeted first step when her voice came from a few feet behind him.
“Thanks for the card.”
He turned around. She looked like a fairy with the lights infiltrating from the living room behind her.
“You’re welcome,” he said. He had left a card in her mailbox on November eleventh, hoping she’d get it. He kept leaving those cards every year, letting her know that her birthday meant more to him than his wedding anniversary. He felt like the world’s biggest shit cheater, but if he hadn’t let her know he thought of her, he’d feel like the world’s biggest shit cheater, too. There was no way for him to win this. He had to stay true to something, and he chose her.
“Gogh for it. Clever,” she said with a smile, quoting the inscription on the recent card that carried the artist’s self-portrait.
